Dust drifted lazily through the air, lit by the soft glow of the crystal-lined walls.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Yet the sound remained. A deathly rumble all around her.
Wind. Crumbling rock. Fading explosions. The lingering echo of an avalanche still ringing in her ears. Perhaps even her own heartbeat thrummed along with everything else.
Gwen pushed herself up on shaking arms, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. There was a smear of red on her cheek, numbed by the dull afterglow of the blow. Her eyes locked on the slumped figure only meters away.
Blood pooled beneath him, dark against the pale stone. His head lolled forward, held there by gravity alone.
He wasn’t getting up.
Not anymore.
Her shoulders sagged as the tension drained all at once. A small, disbelieving smile crept onto her face. A weak, broken laugh slipped free—half relief, half exhaustion.
It was over.
Finally over.
“Hey!”
Veronica’s voice cracked through the cavern, sharp and urgent, resounding through the lingering rumble.
“Celebrate later!” she shouted. “Tell your monster to calm down—or I’m turning him into rubble!”
Gwen flinched and spun around, dread surging up her spine.
Rocky wasn’t hurt. No, it was far worse.
His massive body stood hunched near the wall, trembling violently. The white crystal spires along his back had grown far larger than normal—larger than they ever had during harvest. They pulsed faster and faster, light bleeding through widening fractures as the air around him warped, mana condensing tighter within his frame.
Rocky let out a low, agonized rumble.
It wasn’t a roar.
Instead, it was a broken cry for help, strained, weak, and completely desperate.
Veronica stood across the cavern, one palm raised toward him. Her expression was dead serious, intent, as if she meant every word of her threat.
Gwen shouted without thinking. “Wait! Please—don’t do it!”
“Listen to me,” Veronica snapped, eyes dead-focused on the beast. “That thing of yours is overloading. I can feel the mana in the air. If it keeps condensing that power, it’s going to explode. It’ll bury us both in this cave.”
Her gaze flicked to Gwen for a measly heartbeat.
“Either you stop it now, or I blast it into pieces.”
Gwen’s heart slammed in her chest, adding to the rumbling in her ears.
“No—!” she cried, scrambling to her feet. “I’ll stop him! Just—just wait!”
She ran to Rocky, ignoring the crushing pressure radiating from his body. As she reached him, she pressed her hand to his stone-like hide.
Heat surged beneath her palm.
He was shaking.
“Rocky!” she shouted. “Rocky, look at me!”
The beast’s head twitched. Slowly, his eyes refocused on her, yet they were wild, like a wounded feral animal. The rumble deepened as he tried to open his mouth, as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t.
Gwen slammed both palms against his side.
“It’s okay,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “It’s over. He’s gone. I won’t get hurt anymore. Please—please stop. You can calm down now.”
Mana stirred inside her.
Two faint wings formed behind her palms, pale green light spilling softly over her hands as she poured it into Rocky’s body. She closed her eyes and focused with everything she had.
The trembling slowed. The pressure eased—just slightly. But his body only grew more unstable.
The man’s commands had pushed him too far. Far past anything she could fix quickly.
Rocky was going to detonate.
Veronica stared at the monster, lips pressed thin.
Sage. What’s the chance that thing explodes?
[The mana inside its body is being compressed too densely, building up continuous pressure. Chance of mana-induced detonation is at 64%.]
Is there any other way to stop it aside from killing it?
She had no qualms about killing the monster itself—but it would be a waste.
The thing called Rocky was a treasure trove of mana crystals. If the hooded man had been harvesting crystals from it all this time, that meant it could naturally produce them, possibly without limit. Destroying something like that would be a huge loss, akin to dousing an eternal, everlasting flame. It could prove useful in the future if she could preserve it.
[The large crystals along its back appear to be storing excess mana. If you deplete them, the surplus will have somewhere to flow until the creature calms. Breaking them may instead cause immediate detonation..]
Veronica scrunched her face, displeased.
The crystals were massive—far larger than the ones the man had casually cradled earlier. That left only two options: disperse the mana through self-detonation, or drain and store it elsewhere.
Can the crystals in this cavern hold the mana?
[Sasphere crystals can only hold ambient, unrefined mana. They are incapable of holding regular mana.]
Then… what if I do it? If I empty my cores first, I should be able to absorb it, right?
[In theory, yes. With your dual mana cores, you should have sufficient capacity to significantly drain the crystals, provided the creature stops producing additional mana.]
Veronica nodded, lowering her hand. “Can’t waste an opportunity like this. Let me know if he's about to explode.”
She ran toward Rocky and Gwen.
Hearing her approach, Gwen looked up sharply. “What are you doing?”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Veronica stepped past her, closing in on Rocky’s side. “I’m stopping him from blowing himself up. I need to drain the mana from the crystals on his back. You focus on calming him down.”
“What? That’s too much mana. Unless you’re Tier-4, you won’t have the capacity—”
Veronica ignored her, leaping onto Rocky’s back. “Stop worrying about useless things and get him to stop making mana.”
The white crystals pulsed rapidly beneath her. Veronica placed her left palm against one and raised her other hand toward the cavern.
Three wings flared behind her palm.
“I just need to minimize the damage,” she murmured.
She relied on a Fifth-Tier spell—reimagined and stripped down to Third-Tier. It was weaker, much cruder, and used way more mana than she'd normally want. But that was the point. She couldn’t afford the cave to collapse.
A spell circle formed before her, the largest she’d created yet—simplified to its bare essentials.
Veronica exhaled once, then released it.
Light burst from her palm, expanding outward in a brilliant front. A sheer wall of radiance tore across the cavern, flooding the space with blinding white.
The stone there didn’t shatter. Instead, it softened.
The rock walls glowed red, then orange, sagging and flowing like wax left too close to flame. Rough surfaces smoothed, hissing as molten stone met cooler rock beneath.
This specific spell wasn't a beam, nor a focused attack. Instead, it essentially emitted a wide cone of light. It was difficult to correctly aim this attack, as it essentially hit everything in front of her. The only direction she could safely aim it towards, was the end of the cave, otherwise she risked destroying and crumbling the entrance.
Despite the blinding cone of light, it didn't produce as much heat as it looked, but rather, the light repeatedly pierced into the stone, hundreds, if not thousands of times. Miniature spears. The heat was only an after effect.
She held it until her mana cores ran dry.
Her teeth clenched the entire time until the light finally faded. Although emptying her mana core entirely was not dangerous, it felt uncomfortable nonetheless, especially when used up all in one go.
Mana: 58/900 MU
“…Good enough,” she muttered hoarsely.
The entrance tunnel to the deeper cavern was now sealed with melted stone. Gathering the rest of the adventurers’ gear would be nearly impossible.
But that wasn’t important. There was a bigger prize here.
Veronica turned her focus inward, feeling the crystal beneath her palm. She drew the power into herself, mana flowing directly into her system.
One massive crystal was absorbed immediately, already beginning to refill.
Mana: 327/900 MU
-
[Chance of detonation reduced by 14%]
She exhaled slowly and looked down at Gwen.
“It’s going to work,” Veronica said. “But you have to make him stop producing more mana.”
Gwen didn’t look up. Both hands were pressed to Rocky’s fractured hide, pale green light spilling between her fingers as she poured everything she had into him.
Repeating the process, Veronica moved to the next crystal.
Then the next.
Below, Gwen continued whispering, pleading softly as she worked. “It’s okay, Rocky. I’m okay. I’m here.”
She pressed her forehead to his head, grounding him.
Rocky still trembled, but his groans softened. The pulsing light within the crystals slowed, the risk of detonation fading.
“Just a few more,” Veronica murmured.
Minutes passed in strained silence, broken only by cooling stone and Rocky’s exhausted breathing. Twice more, Veronica released a large burst of light, shining on and melting the rock further at the back of the cavern.
By the end, the back of the cave was warped and solidified, the air thick with the acrid scent of scorched rock.
Rocky’s massive body slowly lowered. The remaining crystals along his back dimmed, faintly luminous but no longer dangerous. The fractures in his hide stopped spreading, stone knitting together beneath Gwen’s continued healing.
The danger was gone.
Gwen knelt beside Rocky, arms wrapped around his head as his breathing evened out and his eyes finally slid shut.
He began to sleep.
Veronica stood a short distance away, leaning lightly against the cavern wall as she caught her breath. Her mana reserves were fine, but casting so many costly spells and forcibly refilling her core with external mana was straining.
She watched them for a moment. Then she straightened.
“Alright,” Veronica said quietly. “I think things have finally calmed down.”
Gwen didn’t move.
“So,” Veronica continued, practical and steady, “it’s time you tell me what’s been going on.”
Her gaze shifted between the sleeping beast and the girl clinging to him.
“What is that thing,” she asked, “and who was the man with the binding ring?”
The cavern remained still as Gwen drew a shaky breath.
“Rocky isn’t… a thing,” she said softly. “He’s… I don’t know.” She shook her head. “He was just a small rock creature with big eyes. I thought he was cute, so I started taking care of him.”
Her gaze softened as she looked down at him.
“I found him near the cave entrance while I was collecting herbs for the adventurers’ guild. It was an F-rank request—for an alchemist. That was three years ago.”
“How old are you now?” Veronica asked.
“Seventeen.”
Veronica glanced back at the massive beast. “And he grew this large in just a few years?”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah. Apparently he grows really quickly.” She hesitated, then added, “He really likes salt. And the white crystals in this cave.”
“He can eat Sasphere crystals?” Veronica asked absently.
Gwen blinked. “Is that what they’re called? I didn’t know.”
Her gaze drifted to the corpse slumped against the cavern wall, her expression tightening.
“As for him… his name was Lorence. I met him two years ago. I didn’t realize it at first, but he’d been following me whenever I came here.” She swallowed. “One day, he saw me with Rocky. It was… bad timing.”
“Why?” Veronica asked.
Gwen glanced at Rocky’s back. “That was the day he was shedding.”
“Shedding?”
“The crystals,” Gwen explained. “When they fill with mana, they fall off on their own.”
Veronica’s face darkened. “But he can accelerate the process.”
Gwen nodded slowly. “Yes. Rocky can force himself to make them grow faster.” Her hands clenched on Rocky’s stony hide. “It hurts him. A lot.”
She took a steadying breath.
“Lorence didn’t care. He ambushed me on my way back to Ronswick that day.” Her voice trembled slightly. “That’s when he used the ring.”
She tugged the neckline of her tunic down just enough to reveal the skin above her chest. Faint black markings were etched there, burned into her flesh like ink.
“He pointed the ring at me, and this dark marking appeared on me. Some type of curse or seal,” she said. “Whenever he wanted, he could activate it. It didn’t just hurt—it felt like my whole body was tearing itself apart.”
She pulled the fabric back up and wrapped her arms around Rocky, holding him tighter.
“Rocky hates seeing me in pain. He always has. So whenever Lorence gave an order… Rocky listened.” Her voice dropped. “That’s how he controlled him.”
For the next two years, Lorence returned regularly. Each time, he forced Rocky to accelerate crystal growth—what he called the harvest. Gwen was ordered to heal the damage afterward, keeping him alive long enough to repeat the process.
“I couldn’t leave,” she said softly. “If I ran or told anyone, he’d activate the ring to hurt me and kill Rocky. And if Rocky refused to cooperate, he’d use the ring on me to force him to comply.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
Veronica crossed her arms, eyes narrowed as she pieced it together—the ring, the curse, the crystal growth, the beast’s instability.
“So,” she said at last, “you were trapped.”
Gwen nodded.
“I… I was buying time,” she whispered. “I thought maybe one day I could learn enough magic to break the seal myself, and then warn the guild without fear.”
“Learn?” Veronica echoed.
Gwen looked back at her. “Lorence didn’t let me return to the city often. He brought food here, and I only worked part-time as a waitress a few times a month so no one would notice I’d disappeared.”
She held out a hand, forming two mage wings above her palm. “I reached Tier-2 a couple of months ago. I used my earnings to buy magic books—mostly on healing magic. Lorence didn’t mind, since it helped Rocky. But I was also studying dispelling magic, hoping I could remove the seal myself.” She hesitated. “I would’ve finished learning a spell to dispel it in a few more months.”
Her eyes lowered. “But then the guild sent adventurers to kill Rocky. After that… I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want things to end like this.”
She looked at Veronica again, her voice almost pleading. “Are you… are you going to tell the guild what happened here? They might kill Rocky…”
Veronica stared back at her, considering it for a few moments.
Money was important. But opportunity was greater.
There had been something bugging her all this time, after all.
“Tell me,” Veronica said, “how much mana have you been using this whole time to heal Rocky?”
“H-how much mana?” Gwen repeated. “I… I don’t know. How am I supposed to measure that?”
“You said you’re a Tier-2 mage, right?” Veronica continued. “Yet from the moment Lorence appeared, you’ve been using constant healing magic on Rocky—even when he activated the ring on you.”
“Y-yeah. I guess I have been. But why does that matter?”
With dual mana cores, Veronica had double the reserves of a normal mage. Her nine hundred points would be only four hundred and fifty for a regular Tier-3 mage. For a Tier-2 like Gwen, the amount she’d been using made no sense.
Unless—
“How much ambient mana are you drawing?” Veronica asked.
“Ambient mana?” Gwen hesitated. “I don’t know how much exactly. I burn through my own mana really fast, so I’ve been using ambient mana to supplement it.”
“How many times would you say you’ve refilled the equivalent of your mana core using only ambient mana?”
Gwen fell silent, thinking. Then she answered, quietly, “Maybe… five times?”
Veronica’s eyes widened.
It was within her expectations—but still shocking.
Her gaze drifted to the Sasphere crystals embedded throughout the cave walls.
Three years living beside crystals saturated with ambient mana…
Veronica smiled.
Seventeen years old. Tier-2. By conventional standards, that was painfully slow—far behind the so-called geniuses the mage towers loved to praise.
But tier meant nothing to her.
What mattered was potential, and growth.
Gwen had grit. The way she’d thrown herself at Lorence, fists flying despite the pain, had been telling—and more so entertaining. More importantly, her ability to draw in and convert ambient mana was exceptional—fast, efficient, and she kept it up, sustained under pressure and pain.
That determination wasn't something many people had.
So what if she was only Tier-2?
Anyone who trained under an Exalted Mage didn’t have to worry about advancing. Besides, being able to use ambient mana that quickly was a skill one would have to hone over a long period of time. And yet, Gwen already had both feet planted forward.
Maybe she could hit two birds, with one rock.
“I won’t report Rocky to the guild,” Veronica said.
Gwen’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Veronica raised a finger. “Under one condition.”
Gwen stiffened, suspicion creeping in. “You’re not going to demand mana crystals, are you? I’m not agreeing to being subjected to—”
Veronica shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Though I’ll gladly take any extra crystals he sheds naturally.”
She lowered her hand and met Gwen’s eyes.
“I won’t tell the guild. I’ll even get the higher-ups at the Magic Tower to place him under protection.”
Gwen’s eyes widened, disbelief flashing across her face.
“My only condition,” Veronica said calmly, “is that you become my student.”
I did not delete the comment thread. It was either deleted by the original poster, or removed by site mods.
First: criticism of the story, characters, and writing is completely welcome. If something feels off to you, unrealistic, or even frustrating, feel free to point it out.
"Why is Veronica not doing X? or "She obviously knows Y but isn't doing X for some reason"
Second: Please keep the criticism directed at the work and or characters themselves, and not me or other commentors. You can be a bit harsh, but the goal here is constructive criticism, not verbal attacks.
"Why the fuck is Veronica doing X? She should be doing Y and Z!" or "This isn't believable at all and completely contradicts her character."
not fine. The first sentence above is not constructive. It's condescending. There are millions of ways to phrase it better and actually garner discussion. Such as, "X characters usually... I think it would be best if you did... X doesn't feel like X should be..." Same goes for the second sentence.